Luna continued her training in the dungeon until she ran out of mana from repeated uses of a.s.sa.s.sinate. Meanwhile, I started my own training to practice my usage of Napalm Strike.Unlike the game era where the skill can be activated by a press of a b.u.t.ton, the skill has to be activated with a chant and it has an activation period where the spell can be activated. Between it"s long cast time and short activation period, it is a skill that requires a lot of practice to grasp it"s timing. In the future, there will be a time where I will have to activate Napalm Strike in a heated battle against a faster and stronger opponent. If I do not master the timing for the skill, I may not survive that opponent. In any case, I am also practicing my barehanded combat for emergencies where I do not have my swords.
[As expected, it is a risky move to activate Napalm Strike.] (Youya)
The weak point of Napalm Strike was that it"s activation window was too short whereas it"s casting time was too long. If I don"t land the attack right after casting it, the spell will expire. It"s casting time and activation window is much more severe than I thought.
Normally, when a spell"s level is increased, it"s overall effectiveness increases and it"s casting time gets shorter. For some spells, it"s even possible to have an instantaneous activation. However, customized magic spells function differently.
Spells that were customized with Magic Customization can neither be reverted or customized, requiring the user to have foresight to customize a spell that can be used in the future.
I"ll have to take responsibility for customizing such a difficult spell. I have no choice but take some time to adapt to the spell"s timing. It may be difficult, but this spell will be worth it.
This are the kind of challenges that I do not dislike.
I will practice activating Napalm Strike today until my mana runs dry.
Although we have only been practicing against goblins so far, we will be returning once our mana runs dry. Goblins could easily be beaten without skills, making them good target practice for us. In addition, we left the inn in the afternoon, and it"s getting close to night. It"s too dangerous for us to stay in the jungle during the night.
[Luna, it"s about time we head back to the inn.] (Youya)
[Uhn. I"m worn out but content with my progress today.] (Luna)
[Don"t be too happy. Your thrusts were getting sloppy towards the end. You still need more practice.] (Youya)
[O-tsu! Luna will try her best.] (Luna)
I was watching Luna the entire day while she was battling goblins. Physical fatigue started to kick in towards the second half, causing her precision to fall. Her critical rate had fell to about 70%. Her success rate will fall in an actual battle when she is getting pressured by her opponent. It will continue to fall further if she was surrounded by multiple enemies. Her skill is still insufficient, but she still has a lot of room to improve. After watching her performance these past two days, it shouldn"t take too long before she completely masters a.s.sa.s.sinate.
[Luna. Can you pa.s.s me the drop items that you picked up from your battles.] (Youya)
[Uhn. Only this was dropped.] (Luna)
Luna took the item out of her magic bag and pa.s.sed it over to me. Her bag could hold about 10 kilograms of items. It was only a fraction of my bag"s capacity, but it is better than having a normal bag. Without the magic bag, she would have to carry a large backpack with her in the dungeon. Even a 10 kilograms magic bag would cost about 2 million giru. For comparison, bread in this world cost 100 giru. There was a huge demand for magic bags in the marketplace.
Adventurers weren"t the only people who wanted a magic bag, but so do peddlers and merchants. The market price for Magic Bags were constantly on the rise due to the increasing number of merchants in the industry. Thus, whenever a bag was discovered, adventurers would often sell them for a high price.
[Alright, quest completed. There was a quest that requested for an item dropped by goblins. Since we were going to train, I accepted the quest before we entered.] (Youya)
The item that the goblins dropped was the Sage. Sage is an herb commonly used in the brewing of potions. Since the demand for potions is always present, collection quests for these kind of herbs are common.
Checking the quest board before departing is one of the basics for being an adventurer.
[Alright, now our guild points will increase again.] (Luna)
[And we get some money as a reward too.] (Youya)
Me and Luna did a high-five.
Luna got to practice her secret attack while we made progress as a party.
Today was a good day.
When we returned to the guild, there was a crowd gathering around the reception desk at the front of the guild.
Let"s find out what happened.
At the center of the crowd, were two elven girls. Originally, Elfs lived in their villages deep in the forest and were rarely seen outside of their forests. Two of such elfs were currently quarreling with each other.
[Why is my elder sister such an idiot! Why can"t I be an adventurer?] (Elf no.1)
[Being an adventurer is a dangerous job. It"s normal for an average countryman to become an adventurer. However, whether it is being deceived by others or losing your life to monsters, it is still a dangerous job. Furthermore, you are a girl. A cute girl with a good body.] (Phil)
One of the elves is a well-known figure in this guild who used to be my party member, Phill while the other appears to be her sister. They were both beautiful girls with long ears, blonde hair and jade-colored eyes.
[If my sister can do it, then so can I.] (Phil"s sister)
[I was just lucky. If that person didn"t pick me up, I would have been sold as a slave and most likely end up dead. Please listen to me.] (Phil)
I remembered the time when I first met Phil. I had taken up a quest that asked for adventurers to save an elven village from pillagers. That quest turned out to be a success and the village was saved. It was supposed to be a happy ending but what ended up happening was Phil requesting to become an adventurer after being saved. At the time, she was merely a cute elf who admired adventurers. There were many adventurers who were eyeing her and tried to take advantage of that admiration. At the time, I was a solo adventurer who didn"t have a party. Watching the scene unfold, in order to save her, I decided to recruit her into a party with me.
At the time, if I did not help Phil, she would have likely been sold as a slave. Elves who are always beautiful and would never grow old are rare and would fetch a high price.
After that, Phil became my disciple and we adventured alone for awhile. After awhile, the extremely talented Leonard and veteran thief Lyle joined our party. Together we conquered a variety of dungeons, and our party became famous.
In a way, that was the peak of my adventuring life.
[Stop with this nonsense and listen to me. I will talk to the people in the guild and cancel the cla.s.s tomorrow. I"ll take a day off and I am bringing you back to the village.] (Phil)
[Big sis is an idiot!!] (Phil"s sister)
Tears started to form in her eyes as Phil"s sister ran in our direction.
This is bad. The girl was rubbing her eyes as she ran without watching where she"s running.
I am too deep into the crowd, there isn"t any room for me to evade or hide.
If I can"t evade, then I"ll take the blow.
She continued running in my direction, until she crashed against my body. Antic.i.p.ating her movements, I caught her softly as she ran into me. Phil followed right after, chasing after her sister.
[I am sorry, please excuse my sister"s actions…..wait. That face.. I"ve met you somewhere.] (Phil)
I was wearing the hat that I used as cover to hide my face. However, even with the hat, if she is this close up the hat wouldn"t do any good. The girl who b.u.mped into me earlier looked up.
[Ah! It"s my sister"s boyfriend! It"s the guy whose face was on the letter you sent to the village a long time ago!] (Elf sister)
I screwed up. I shouldn"t had let this happen.
Although it"s nice to know that Phil had pictures of me, it"s especially careless of me since Phil must have been talking about me to her little sister.
[Eh? That can"t be. Could you be Youya..? But your level is too low to be him..] (Phil)
Based on what she said, looks like she had suspicions about my ident.i.ty up until now. However, because she was able to see my level, she probably thought that I was someone who was similar to me.
Phil was getting closer and closer. I took my hat off and looked at her.
[Huh!? Why are you in Rumberg? And your level… How?] (Phil)
[Well.. things happened and here I am.] (Youya)
My ident.i.ty was finally exposed. I always knew it would happen, but I hadn"t expected it to happen so soon.
The girl who b.u.mped into me let out a sly smile.
[Hey.. Youysan. You are onee-chan"s boyfriend aren"t you. She was always talking about you back in the village, that you are the most reliable person in the world. Then would you accept a quest from me? I"ll give you the treasure of the Elves, and in exchange, please accept me into your party!] (Elf sister)
The girl was asking for an unreasonable request. Phil placed her hand on her face and looked down towards the ground while the surrounding adventurers started becoming noisy.
[Boyfriend!? To THAT Phil?]
[That"s a lie.. He is just an old man.]
[Laying a hand on our idol.. You wanna die?]
[I just wish for Phil-chan"s happiness]
As expected, Phil is extremely popular as the beautiful elf receptionist in the guild.
I felt my hands being pulled by someone.
I looked behind and saw that it was Luna.
Luna interlocked her fingers with mine and looked at the elf sisters.
[Youya is Luna"s. Luna won"t give Youya away.] (Luna)
Suddenly, the guild turned into total silence. Few moments later, whispers could be heard.
[To such a small child..]
[Hes a devil.]
[They could be considered parent and child..]
Everyone was clearly misunderstanding the situation.
[Hey, Youya. You can"t be doing such things to a small child.. Right?] (Phil)
Oie. Phil. Not you too.
[Isn"t it obvious? You of all people know what I"m like. It"s the same case with you. I"m just taking up the troublesome role of looking after her.] (Youya)
[Ah. That"s right.. Theres no way the Youya who didn"t lay a hand on me all those years even though I gave him plenty of opportunities would lay a hand on such a small child.] (Phil)
For some reason, Luna was puffing her chest out proudly.
[Youya played with Luna"s most important place.] (Luna)
Phil looks directly at my face with a menacing look. It is blatantly written on her face.
[Sigh. Let"s just talk outside later before any other misunderstandings happen. Phil. We"ll be waiting for you after your job is over.] (Youya)
[It"s already after hours. It"s my personal time now.] (Phil)
[Then let"s change the location.] (Phil)
[Well. Leaving this aside. There are things that I want to ask and talk about.] (Phill)
The conversation resulted in a drinking session with an old colleague.
Well with a bunch of new faces though. Luna was staring intently at Phil"s sister. Let"s just leave the rumors as it is for the time being.
I"ve always been weak to pushy people in the past. Seems like that hasn"t changed.
Hi guys. Thanks for reading this chapter! If there are any mistakes, comment them down below.